


Once Upon a Dream

by catlike



Series: Stardust and Story Books (A Collection of Whouffle and Whouffaldi Fairy Tale Retelling One-Shots) [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sleeping Beauty (Fairy Tale), Sleeping Beauty - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Episode: s09e11 Heaven Sent, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Sleeping Beauty - Freeform, Sleeping Beauty Elements, whouffaldi, whouffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catlike/pseuds/catlike
Summary: They say there’s a princess who sleeps in death behind a diamond briar, that she’s been asleep for billions of years and she’s doomed to sleep for billions more.And there’s a man, an ageless knight, the last prince of Gallifrey, who’s spending an eternity trying to reach her.(A Heaven Sent x Sleeping Beauty Retelling)
Relationships: The Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Stardust and Story Books (A Collection of Whouffle and Whouffaldi Fairy Tale Retelling One-Shots) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692124
Comments: 12
Kudos: 97





	Once Upon a Dream

There is a princess, they say, filled with the light of the sun. She’s kind and she’s wise and they claim that she’s led thousands of lives. And there is an ageless knight, the last prince of his realm, and they whisper that he’s worn a dozen faces, that he’s been alive longer than half the stars in the sky, and can win wars without even raising his sword.

And they are always together, this princess and the Knight, their fates intertwined like constellations or vines. There are hundreds of poems and thousands of stories and millions and millions of songs, and each one of them say that together, they can shake stars and burn suns and save worlds.

And here is the best part:

He loves her more than anything else in the universe.

And here, here, _here_ is the worst part:

He loves her more than anything else in the universe.

#

They are in Trap Valley. There’s smoke filling the sky above and snow-white ashes burning below, and in the space in-between, the Knight stands, and he thinks:

This is wrong, this is wrong, this is _wrong_.

Because the black mark of the raven is burned onto the princess’ wrist, and she’s telling him something that sounds like goodbye, and he’s finding that his heart feels like a stone and that his throat has gone dry. 

“Don’t run,” the Knight whispers. “Stay with me.”

And she wants to. _Oh,_ how she wants to.

But that’s not how their story goes.

”This is as brave as I know how to be,” the princess, Clara, says, as she looks into his eyes and rests her hand on his cheek. “Please, be a little proud of me.”

The Knight nearly laughs at that, because how could he _not_ be proud? She’s saved his life so many times, and she’s courageous and wise with a spark in her eyes that suggests that she’s so much bigger than the body the universe has given her.

And now, to save a village full of people, she’s walking toward a sleeping death.

She tries to slide her hand away, but he catches it midair, presses it against his lips to kiss, and against her skin, he murmurs, “I’ve got duty of care.”

She laughs, and it sounds broken and sad, and he _hates_ it.

“No,” she tells him. “You don’t have duty of care. You’re free from it.”

 _She’s wrong_ , he thinks. He’ll never, ever be free from it.

But he loses his hold on her and she slips out of his grasp, turning toward the waiting spinning wheel with the raven’s beak spindle.

“Let me be brave,” he hears her whisper, over and over, like the words are an anchor, something she’s holding onto as the world’s washing her away. “Let me be brave.”

And he can do nothing but watch as her hand hovers right above the spindle, one breath and a brush away from eternal slumber, and she says, one last time:

“Let me be brave.”

Then her finger hits the needle, and she screams.

And she screams and she screams and she _screams_ , and his two hearts are twisting and he’s crying, thinks he’s dying, because there’s nothing, not a single sound in this universe or the next that could possibly hurt him like this sound does.

And he’s frozen to the spot, staring as her eyes flutter shut and she falls to the ground, fast asleep in a crumpled heap, fated to sleep forevermore.

He tries to run to her, to fall down beside her, because once, a very long time ago, he heard a story that said that true love’s kiss can wake one from this. And it’s a only a guess, a mere hunch, a desperate wish, but he’s got to try.

(And if true love really is the key, well, the one fact he knows without question or pause is that there’s no one - _no one_ \- in the entire universe who loves her more than he does.)

But before he can reach her, he feels hands on his shoulders and metal chains around his wrists, and though he tries and he thrashes and throws himself forward, he can’t wrench free. And as guards drag him away, the last thing he sees is her and the last thought he thinks is:

_I promise I’ll come back for you._

#

He’s trapped in a maze. There are thousands of walls and hundreds of halls and who knows how many stairs and they all lead him nowhere. He knows, somehow, that the princess lies beyond all this, that if he can break free of the maze, he can find her, wake her, _save_ her.

He has duty of care to complete, after all. And what are mazes and chains and eternal slumber compared to this vow he holds in his heart?

But the maze keeps him trapped and runs him in circles, always resetting, always placing him right back at step one. It’s like the universe is telling him:

_You can have eternity, but you can’t have her. Never her. Don’t you understand that yet?_

And he tells the universe:

_No._

#

He is in the maze, in midair, falling from a stained glass window, with nothing but the grey sky above and the blue sea below, and he closes his eyes and then -

Then _she’s_ there.

(This is what the Knight does, what he _has_ to do. When he’s a breath away from death, he dreams he’s out of the maze and he dreams he’s not alone. And it’s always her he sees. Who else could it possibly be? The curve of her smile and the sound of her laugh mean _home_.)

He knows that this is only a story in his head, a tale that starts off with _once upon a dream_ instead of _once upon a time_ , that the real Princess is out there somewhere lying wakeless in the dark. But here in his head, she is awake and alive, and fire and wonder and stars fill her eyes. This is how she looks to him - how she will _always_ look to him: like she is someone who holds a thousand worlds in her soul.

And she looks over at him, and says:

“How are you going to _win_?”

#

He discovers the maze is sealed off from time, its own little sphere of eternity encircled by a briar of pure diamond.

He thinks it will take years upon years just to break a single jeweled thorn off the briar, and he thinks there’s thousands and thousands of thorns. And that’s not even the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is the dragon of death.

It’s scales are as black as a starless night sky and it’s curled horns curve across its face like a veil of lace. In it’s mouth burns red-hot flames, and when it roars, it sounds like rolling thunder. It is like every one of his deepest and darkest fears, something that clawed it’s way out of his childhood nightmares, and he is _scared._

But, he reminds himself, as his breath shakes and his hands quake and heart pounds like a drum: 

She was scared too.

And before he can change his mind, he spins, slams his fist into the briar, and screams, just like she did:

“Let me be brave.”

And then the dragon burns him up with glowing fire.

#

When he wakes up, he wakes up with a gasp, and his lungs feel full of shattered glass. He is back at the start of the maze, miles and hours away from the briar. He can still smell phantom smoke in the air and feel heat from invisible flames and he’s left with a terrifying, twisting, sickening feeling that this is not the first time he’s died in that very same way and lied in this very spot and had these very same thoughts.

And as his head spins and his heart pounds and he tries to pull himself up off the ground, all he can think is:

He needs to try again.

#

Here is the thing about this maze:

It always ends in death.

Whatever path to the briar the Knight takes, whichever way he turns, the black dragon of death will always find him. He’s tried to run and he’s tried to hide, but no matter how far or how fast he goes, the dragon is always there, just a few steps behind, it’s claws curling against the cobblestones and its scales smelling of smoke.

And that’s not even the scary part.

No, the scary part is, it _knows_ him. It’s beaten him before. It knows the fear in his eyes and the sound of his cries and the way his blood tastes on its tongue.

(That is what happens when something kills you every single night for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

It gets to know you intimately, terrifyingly well.)

The knight knows that the black dragon guards the briar, that if he just avoids the diamond thicket, goes anywhere else in the maze but there, the dragon won’t interfere.

But the princess isn’t anywhere else but behind there, so the Knight slams his fist yet again into the briar - 

And the dragon burns him up in fire.

#

He has lost track of how many times he’s bled in front of the briar, of how many times he’s been consumed alive by dragon fire.

But love is a promise and a duty of care and the vow to come back, to always be there, and he’s died every day for a million years for that promise, and to keep it, he’ll die for millions more.

There’s not a single second where he doubts that she’s worth it.

#

“I’m going to tell you a story,” the Knight tells the dragon. “But be warned, I don’t think you’re going to like how it ends.“

The dragon opens its jaws, ash and bone falling from its lips and grey smoke spiraling out of its nose.

“ _There was a princess, and when she was born, they called her Clara, for the name means ‘bright,’ and she filled the world with light_ ,” the Knight recites, before suddenly turning, punching the briar, letting the diamond thorn fall to pieces at his boots, “ _and there is a prince, who will always come for her, for -_ “

And the dragon burns him up in fire.

#

“- _Love is a promise_ ,” the Knight says, ripping away at diamond shards, the jagged edges tearing at his hands and ripping his cloak and scrapping his boots. “ _The princess lies in eternal slumber, and to break the spell, the prince must take his sword of truth and his shield of virtue_ -“

And the dragon burns him up in fire.

(And this is all he ever does: tells stories and breaks thorns and burn. 

And when he burns, he dreams of her, and he finds he can’t regret the choice to die.)

#

He wakes up at the start of the maze for what might be the billionth time.

His skin is unburnt and his bones are unbroken, but he can still _feel_ it, feel it all so deeply. Every single second that goes by. Every single scorch on his flesh and painful twist in his chest and the cuts on his hands as he breaks through the briar and the way that he dies again and again and _again_.

But he can still see it, see her standing in front of the spinning wheel like it was yesterday, even though that yesterday was so, so many years ago.

That one, unbearable, unforgettable, terrible memory replays in his mind over and over and over again, like a music box that just won’t stop: 

Her finger above the spindle, the look in her eyes and the way her cries got caught in her throat and how she fell where she stood: too young and too good and _gone_.

And this is why he rises, and runs toward death _again_ , and continues his story, whispering:

“ _But first, the prince must escape from his chains and cross the forbidden mountain to the twisted briar....”_

#

“Why are you telling our story?” The Dream Princess asks, as he’s dying again, with a broken wrist and a bleeding lip and burn marks on his skin. “It doesn’t end well.”

He laughs. “Oh, Clara Oswald,” he says. “Our story hasn’t finished yet.”

It can’t have. He won’t let it end like that. Stories can’t be over unless you let them go.

And he’ll never let her go.

#

“- _And the prince was told he must climb to the highest room of the tallest tower_ ,” the Knight continues, as he grinds another diamond thorn to dust between his fingertips, and it sparkles sharply against his skin before he scatters it carefully on the ground. “ _And with true love’s kiss, the sleeping beauty will wake. But before he can reach her, he must face the deadly dragon, and the dragon -“_

And the dragon burns him up in flames.

#

When he lives, he thinks of her.

(When he dies, he thinks of her too.)

“Why?” 

He exhales, feeling embers on his skin and ashes in his lungs, and he knows that he’s dying and that he’s dreaming, and above him stands Clara, with a silver crown on her head and a shield in her hands, because even in his dreams she’s still standing guard over him, just like she always has.

“Why?” Dream Clara repeats, her voice breaking, her hands shaking, “I’ve been asleep for half the lifetime of the universe. Why, _why_ would you do this?”

He stares up at her, his vision going hazy, the seconds slipping away with his breath, and he says:

“Duty of care.”

And when he says it, he says it like a promise, because that’s what it is. It is a promise he carries with him through each of his deaths, a vow that’s woven into his mind and written into his bones, because she is Clara Oswald, and he is her knight, and he’s never, ever letting her go.

#

The stars are strange, the constellations changed, and he’s dimly aware that he’s aged. He is older than so many moons and songs and suns.

And he is only halfway through the briar. 

But the Knight pushes this thought away, pushes forward into the glittering bramble instead, the branches scraping painfully at skin as he breaks what he thinks is the hundred-thousandth thorn before tossing it in a half-circle at his shoes.

“ _The dragon fought fiercely, with a belly full of flames and a heart full of war,”_ he says, panting as he speaks, as he waits and anticipates what he knows must come next, “ _But the prince’s -“_

The dragon burns him up in flames.

#

He’s lost count of how many thorns he’s crushed, of how many diamond splinters have scarred his hands, of how much of his blood has been left on the briar.

But that doesn’t matter.

Because there’s a trail of diamond dust beneath his boots and a path to the end of the maze and a single thorn is all that’s left to break. So the knight runs, runs across the glittering shards and slams his hand into the final thorn with all the force in his body.

And it hurts, hurts like a hundred knives cutting into his skin, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care at all, because the crack in the diamond thorn spreads, splintering out like a spider’s web, and then and then and _then_ :

The thorn breaks off, falling from the branch like a single, sparkling teardrop.

And he is _free_.

One by one, the remaining thornless branches turn to jeweled powder and scatter like snow, spreading out on the ground and blowing away on the breeze, and before him, stands the princess’ tower.

But there’s no time to celebrate.

There is still the dragon to deal with.

Out of the corner of his eye, the knight spies sparks and smoke, and he feels heat on the skin of his neck and down the back of his cloak. 

He hears claws against the cobblestone, and a glance behind is all he needs to see the dragon approaching, it’s jaws ablaze with bright fire as it walks.

“Ah,” says the Knight, and there’s blood on his fingers and bruises on his arms, but for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he’s _smiling_. “Here for the rest of the story? I might remind you that all those years ago, I told you you wouldn’t like how it ended.”

Undisturbed by his words, the dragon roars, teeth gleaming, fire glowing, ready to defeat and devour, but the Knight stands tall.

“ _But_ ,” the knight recites, finishing the story he started so many times, so long ago, _“the prince’s sword of truth flew swift and sure.”_

And with those words, the dragon spits down fire, except this time, unlike all those other billions and billions and billions of times: The briar boarder is gone.

This time, the Knight is free to leap out of the maze and out of the way, throwing himself safely to the ground.

This time, the dragon’s flames hit the shattered diamond dust the Knight has spent years and years and years spreading out in a sphere shaped mirror.

This time, the dust glitters and reflects and deflects, throwing back the dragon’s own fire, and finally, finally, _finally_ , after all this time, instead of burning him:

The dragon burns _itself_ up in flames.

The Knight rises, lets out a deep breath he feels like he’s been holding for billions of years, and he says,

“I did warn you that you wouldn’t like the ending.”

#

There’s a sky full of rain falling on a land full of flame as the maze burns itself up from the now slayed dragon’s fire. It’s been billions of years since the knight’s seen the world beyond the maze, and the universe has changed, constellations been made and broken and rearranged, and the tower she sleeps in has weathered with age.

But still, there the princess lies, suspended between one world and the next, looking exactly as she did all those years ago, like she’s simply paused in the timeless space between heartbeats and spans of breath, as if, at any moment, she will awaken to go back to protecting the realm.

Which, if he knows her, is exactly what will happen.

(And he does know her. He knows her like he knows the beat of his own two hearts.)

He kneels beside her, holds his breath and closes his eyes and kisses her softly, waiting and hoping and pleading _let this work, let this work, let this work, let this work,_ and then:

For the first time in what feels like forever, she’s awake.

Her eyes flutter open and she gasps against his lips and gently, he pulls her up to sit, each of his hands curling around both of her wrists, the pads of his fingers pressed in the place above her pulse, where he can feel each beautiful, breathtaking beat of her heart and how it hammers him out a rhythm that says:

She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s _alive_.

He thinks there isn’t a better sound in all the world.

Clara reaches out for him, slowly but steadily, as if she’s testing to see if he’s a mirage or if he’s real. Her fingers curl around the folds of his cloak, and he keeps holding onto her as she holds onto him because he’s fought for four-and-a-half billion years and died every day just to get her back and he’s not letting her go.

Not ever, not again. 

“Don’t be a dream,” she orders him sternly, her dark eyes locked onto his light ones, gaze unwavering, as if she’s afraid that if she looks away, he’ll dissipate and disappear. And he smiles, because Clara - _his_ Clara - has just woken up after having been asleep for billion of years and she’s already back in command.

“Not a dream,” he promises. “I’m real. I’m really here.”

“I’m not asleep,” she whispers in wonder, and then she’s gasping and laughing, overwhelmed and overjoyed and wrapping her arms around him and asking, “How, how, _how_ can I possibly be awake?”

And he laughs, because it’s a very long story. Four-and-a-half billion years long, in fact. But when it comes down to it, the answer is factual and simple, merely a handful of words. So he gives her the short version.

“I had duty of care,” he whispers into her hair. “Did you really think a little thing like death could stop me?”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) To me, Doctor Who has always seemed like this giant, fantastic, star-filled fairy tale. I wrote a Beauty and the Beast Whouffaldi AU and enjoyed writing it so much that I started thinking about what other fairy tale motifs fit Clara and the Doctor. I ended up thinking of how, in Sleeping Beauty, before the fairies intervened and set him free, the prince was originally supposed to wait in the dungeon for a hundred years until he could reach the princess. And I wondered, What if the fairies never intervened? What if the prince really did have to wait a lifetime in prison before he could get to her? What if he spent an eternity trying to reach her? And that made think, obviously, of Heaven Sent. The Veil being the dragon and the wall being the briar just seemed to fit.
> 
> 2) This is now officially part of my new Whouffle/Whouffaldi fairy tale retelling series! **Tale as Old as Time, Song as Old as Rhyme (Beauty and the Beast)** is my previous installment, and I’ve started a (very early and incredibly rough) draft for my next fairy tale retelling, which will feature Clara x Eleven and will you know, hopefully, actually get completed. 
> 
> 3) I feel like I started and stopped this story as many times as the Doctor started and stopped his. There’s a quarantine going on, obviously, and my upstairs neighbor is doing construction and there’s incredibly loud, incredibly high pitched drilling and banging that’s rattling my _entire_ apartment for 8hrs a day and it’s painfully aggravating my seizures and I swear it feels like it’s been going on for 4.5 billion years, guys. So I wrote this piece mail over a week in the early morning hours when I had a headache and couldn’t sleep. So if my writing looks bad or doesn’t make sense.....blame my upstairs neighbor, okay? Okay. 
> 
> 4) I’m really excited about this new fairy tale retelling series and hope you all are too! I’m calling the series Stardust and Story Books for now until I can come up with a better name.
> 
> 5) If you like what I wrote, come find me on Tumblr (username: clara-oswin-oswald), where I can usually be found screaming about Whouffle and Whouffaldi. And fairy tales, obviously.


End file.
